Who holds the Martyn's Law duty in a managed or tenanted pub?
If you run more than one site, this is the first thing to settle, and it's the one people most often get wrong. Get it wrong and you either prepare premises that aren't yours, or assume someone else is looking after premises that are.
The duty follows control of the premises, not ownership of the freehold. In a managed house, the operating company controls the premises and holds the duty. In a tenanted or leased house, it's usually the licensee running the business. So a pub company with a mixed estate holds the duty on part of its portfolio and not the rest.
Why it's control and not ownership
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 puts the obligation on the person responsible for the premises, meaning whoever has control of them in connection with their use. In practice, that's whoever runs the place day to day. Whose name is on the title doesn't decide it.
The premises licence is a separate question, and it's the one that trips people up. A pub company can hold the licence while the tenant holds the duty. The Home Office used exactly that case as an example, and got it wrong. The guidance published in April 2026 named the brewery as the responsible person. A correction slip dated 6 August 2026 changed it to the tenant, because the tenant is the one in control. If you're unsure, ask yourself: who decides what happens in that building on a Friday night?
How it works across common structures
| Structure | Usually holds the duty | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Managed house | The operating company | The company employs the staff, sets the procedures and runs the site. |
| Tenanted or leased | The licensee | The tenant runs the business and controls the premises. The pubco is the landlord. |
| Franchise | Usually the franchisee | Depends on how much operational control the agreement gives them. Read the agreement. |
| Management agreement | Usually the operator | When an owner hands day-to-day running to a third party, control goes with it. |
| Hotel with function rooms | The hotel operator | Even when an organiser hires the room, the operator normally keeps control of the premises. |
| Concession in a larger venue | Often the host venue | The host usually controls the wider premises, and it's that capacity that puts it in scope. |
What this means for a mixed estate
Most sizeable UK pub companies run both models. That gives you three separate jobs:
- Managed sites. The duty is yours. You need procedures, staff who know them, a notification to the SIA, and evidence. If it's not there, you carry the penalty.
- Tenanted sites. The duty is the licensee's. You're not liable, but a tenant who gets it wrong is still a commercial problem for you. Most pubcos already help tenants with licensing and health and safety.
- Sites you're not sure about. Work out which category each one is in before spring 2027, and put it in writing. It's the cheapest job on the list and the easiest to put off.
You don't have to support tenants. Plenty of operators will anyway, for the same reason they run tenant training on other regulation: a tenant fined £10,000 has a problem, and so do you.
Does the 200 threshold apply per site or across the estate?
Per site. The test is whether it's reasonable to expect 200 or more individuals to be present at the same time at those premises, from time to time. If you have forty pubs and nine cross 200, you have nine premises in scope.
"From time to time" is the key phrase. A site that does fifty on an ordinary Tuesday may still be in scope if it fills up for a match, a wedding or New Year's Eve. What counts is capacity on the busiest reasonable occasion, not the weekly average.
What to do about it
- List every site and mark it managed, tenanted, franchised or other.
- For each one, record the busiest reasonable occupancy, not the average.
- Name a responsible person for every site where the duty is yours.
- Decide whether you're going to support tenanted sites or leave it to them, and tell them which.
The estate view on the home page takes three numbers (sites, managed to tenanted split, and how many cross 200) and shows what they add up to: how many premises are yours, how many responsible persons you need to name, and your total penalty exposure.
This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Structures vary and agreements differ. Where a site is borderline, the agreement and a solicitor will settle it better than a web page.
Primary sources: the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, the Home Office statutory guidance published April 2026 and corrected on 6 August 2026, and ProtectUK, which is run by the Home Office, NaCTSO and Counter Terrorism Policing and is free to use.
Written by Abdul Khalique, who builds Musterlog. Musterlog keeps the record of what each site has done. Once you've settled the question above and need to prove the answer across a whole estate, that's the part we help with.